The best graphics cards, according to hackers
42 graphics cards were recommended on Hacker News between November 2025 and November 2026. We rank them by how many separate people recommend each one, and 17 earn the Hacker Approved badge.
Top picks
The three most recommended graphics cards with the badge. Each figure is 10 people. RecommendsCriticizes One comment
Top pick for local LLMs
A used RTX 3090 is the go-to card for running local LLMs, with 24GB of VRAM, strong price-performance, and better speed than Apple hardware, though used prices have climbed.
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Very fast local AI inference
A top consumer GPU for very fast local AI inference and 4K gaming, but 32GB VRAM limits larger models and street prices run well above MSRP.
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Runs large local models with 96GB
Recommended for local AI models and fine-tunes with 96GB VRAM and fast compute. Main caveat: very high price, and little gain over an RTX 5090 for inference.
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We may earn a commission. It never changes the order.
All 42 graphics cards, ranked
Select a column heading to sort. Approval share is recommenders out of everyone who gave an opinion; the tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs. Months counts the months, out of 13, in which someone recommended it.
| Rank | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | 116 | 21 | 85% | 12 | 5 yrs14 owners | Approved |
| 2 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | 102 | 37 | 73% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| 3 | NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 | 77 | 26 | 75% | 12 | — | Approved |
| 4 | Nvidia GPUs | 67 | 67 | 50% | 11 | 6 yrs3 owners | — |
| 5 | AMD Radeon GPU | 48 | 29 | 62% | 11 | 2 yrs7 owners | — |
| Tied 6 | AMD Radeon AI Pro R9700 | 45 | 9 | 83% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Tied 6 | Intel Arc Pro B70 | 45 | 25 | 64% | 8 | — | — |
| 8 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | 38 | 11 | 78% | 12 | — | Approved |
| 9 | 3dfx Voodoo | 34 | 5 | 87% | 10 | — | Approved |
| 10 | Intel Arc GPU | 31 | 7 | 82% | 11 | — | Approved |
| 11 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 | 26 | 3 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Tied 12 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 23 | 7 | 77% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Tied 12 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | 23 | 4 | 85% | 10 | 8 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| 14 | AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT | 22 | 1 | 96% | 10 | — | Approved |
| 15 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB | 16 | 1 | 94% | 9 | — | Approved |
| 16 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | 15 | 4 | 79% | 9 | — | Approved |
| 17 | Intel Arc B580 | 14 | 2 | 88% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Tied 18 | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX | 12 | 6 | 67% | 9 | 2 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Tied 18 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 | 12 | 1 | 92% | 7 | 9 yrs3 owners | Approved |
| Tied 18 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 | 12 | 9 | 57% | 7 | — | — |
| Tied 21 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | 11 | 6 | 65% | 9 | 1 mo3 owners | — |
| Tied 21 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 | 11 | 7 | 61% | 8 | — | — |
| Tied 21 | AMD Radeon RX 9070 | 11 | 1 | 92% | 6 | — | Approved |
| 24 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 | 10 | 8 | 56% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 25 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 | 9 | 2 | 82% | 7 | 3 yrs4 owners | — |
| Tied 25 | Intel GPU | 9 | 4 | 69% | 7 | — | — |
| Tied 25 | Nvidia Blackwell GPU | 9 | 10 | 47% | 7 | — | — |
| Tied 25 | Matrox G400 | 9 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Tied 29 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 29 | AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT | 8 | 1 | 89% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 29 | NVIDIA RTX A6000 | 8 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 32 | AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB | 7 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 32 | Intel Arc Pro B60 | 7 | 5 | 58% | 6 | — | — |
| Tied 32 | AMD Radeon RX 580 | 7 | 3 | 70% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 32 | AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT | 7 | 7 | 50% | 3 | — | — |
| Tied 32 | NVIDIA GeForce | 7 | 10 | 41% | 3 | — | — |
| 37 | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT | 6 | 2 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 38 | NVIDIA Titan V | 5 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Tied 38 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 38 | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | 5 | 3 | 63% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 38 | 3dfx Voodoo3 | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
| Tied 38 | GeForce RTX 5000 series | 5 | 4 | 56% | 3 | — | — |
How we rank
Rank is the number of separate people who recommend a product in a Hacker News comment over the past year. Someone who praises the same graphics card in five threads counts once.
The badge goes to graphics cards that at least 10 people recommend, with recommenders outnumbering critics at least 2 to 1, recommended in at least 4 of the 13 months.
Rankings are never for sale. We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. It never changes the order.